She couldn’t catch her breath. Where had the fire been all this time? How had Gabe managed to keep it smothered? He wasn’t managing now though, because there was definitely sex in the air, rising off their skin to mingle in the atmosphere. His hand dropped from her mouth to her thigh. More heat. She started to tremble.
“Cassandra,” he said, his voice hoarse. His gaze returned to her eyes, then dropped to her mouth where it lingered for a moment. Finally, it shifted lower again. “Cassandra, I didn’t do right by you, did I?”
She shook her head, unsure what he was referring to. He wasn’t doing right by her right now. Because if he didn’t move that hand from her leg and touch her someplace better, preferably one of those tight, aching someplaces he was staring at, she was going to burn up with want. She didn’t know why things had changed between them or what the change meant exactly; but if she could really read auras, theirs were mingling in an explosive combination of simmering yellow and passionate red.
She licked her lips, trembling as he continued to look at her. It was like there was a beast under her skin, a hot, sexy, demanding beast that didn’t remember Gabe had been kicked out of her life. Touch me, damn you, it wanted to shout at him. Touch me. But when Cassandra opened her mouth, a sultry voice—her voice—said something else altogether.
“Is this what you meant when you said everyone wants a chance to size up a person before they make their move?”
Six
The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.
—KENDALL HAILEY
The half-laugh, half-groan sound that Gabe made in response to Cassandra’s question rubbed against her skin like she was desperate for him to do. Maybe he heard her silent plea, because finally his hand slid upward from her leg, slowly smoothing the soft khaki covering her thigh, passing the front pocket, skimming the waistband to the cotton knit of her Henley T-shirt. The flesh over her ribs twitched as his palm tickled her there and then it was cupping her left breast, still not touching, damn him, but transferring his body’s heat to the already sizzling temperature of hers.
She didn’t move.
She had to move.
Then they both moved at once, and she fit her swelling, aching flesh to his hand just as he moved to cover her.
He groaned again.
Her belly—no, lower—clenched. But she held still, not wanting to spook him, not wanting to rush the delicious sensation of his hand over the soft fullness beneath her bra.
“Look at me,” Gabe ordered.
She was afraid to. She was afraid of what he’d see in her eyes, so she lifted her head but let her lashes drift half-closed. His mouth came against hers.
She jolted into the kiss, her nipples tightening unbearably with just that first touch of hard mouth to willing lips. This wasn’t one of those casual, howdy-neighbor busses he’d been doling out lately. This was a man’s demand, a demand that she open immediately for the swift surge of his tongue. Fire flashed over her body as he thrust inside her.
Cassandra widened her mouth—he gave her no choice—and Gabe, usually detached and often so distant except in her fantasies, went greedy on her, feeding her long kisses, commanding kisses, drugging kisses. She leaned into him as she took each one, leaned into that maddening hand that just held her breast, caging it but not caressing it. Her fingers speared into the long hair at the nape of his neck.
He tore his lips from hers and raced more kisses over her cheek, against her ear, across her jaw and then down her neck. His mouth was hot there, open, and when he sucked at her skin, a stab of pleasure speared between her thighs. Swallowing a moan, she squeezed them together to sustain the bright flash of sweetness. Gabe pulled back to stare down at her, his breath coming fast, his nostrils flared.
“Jesus, Cassandra,” he murmured. “Jesus, you make me dizzy.” His gaze dropped from her mouth to focus on his hand, the one over her breast. With a deliberate movement, his fingers flexed.
She gasped, even though the touch was muted by the thin layer of molded foam that was the bra’s cup. Her breasts had always been sensitive, but who could have thought just this whisper of feeling would make her blood burn in her veins? His thumb swiped over the center and she closed her eyes, trying to absorb as much of the sensation as she could through that damnably thick material. She’d bought into the bra maker’s hype—Perfect Under T-shirts!—but she could kill the advertisers or the intimate apparel designers or someone, anyone, because this ridiculous thing was surely invented to dull a man’s touch.
Gabe’s touch.
He slid his thumb over her again and she hoped he didn’t hear her frustrated little whimper.
“Baby,” he said, and she knew from the tone of his voice that he had. “Obviously I didn’t do this right before. I suppose I didn’t do right by you at all, selfish ass that I am. But I can make it better now.”
Better was a million buttons away. She could feel him begin to unfasten them and she flushed hot again, wondering why he didn’t just lift the damn shirt and then dispel with the ugly, confining, can’t-feel-anything-with-it-on bra. This was taking so long . . .
And the anticipation was making her feel so good, she realized, as pleasure pulsed in little bursts between her legs. She was aching there, too, feeling swollen and open and needy. She whimpered again, and Gabe flicked her a glance, a tight smile curving his mouth.
“Shh, baby,” he said, leaning down to deliver another kiss. This one was gentle, sweet, but his tongue was in it, too, and she rubbed hers along the velvety surface of his. “This time I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
She quivered. Men had never made her promises. She’d searched all her life for one who might, but maybe her longings and her lonely soul sent them running in the wrong direction. Or maybe it was because she had looked at the wrong men. Wrong men like Gabe, who was so preoccupied with his ghosts that he couldn’t see the rest of life going on around him.
But he seemed to see her now. His fingers had unfastened buttons as far as a point just below the lower edge of her bra. “There,” he whispered, again in that soothing voice. “There now.”
In one sure movement, he pushed the sleeves of her Henley off her shoulders, taking the bra straps with them. He slid all the material down, until her arms were trapped at her elbows and the cups of that infernal Perfect Under T-shirts! dropped, releasing her breasts.
She trembled harder. He gazed at her bare flesh, his breath coming fast again. Cassandra glanced down, noting the stiff jut of her dark pink nipples and the way her swollen flesh quivered along with the rest of her body.
Gabe’s thumb brushed across the tip of her nipple. She looked for sparks, the pleasure flared and flamed just that much. “My imagination wasn’t this good,” he said.
“You . . . you’ve been thinking about my breasts?” She wiggled a little, trying to move her arms out of their trap.
“Hold still,” he said, and he caged her breasts again with his fingers, touching, but not really touching. “If you don’t hold still I’ll stop.”
He couldn’t stop! She closed her eyes and surrendered, willing her muscles to relax even as every cell and every nerve was on alert for his next move.
“Nice,” he said, and he rewarded her by rubbing his thumbs around each areola, tracing a light circle. Reward, punishment, it was all the same because in seconds it wasn’t enough.
“Gabe, don’t tease.”
He laughed, a low, sexy sound that had her thighs clenching again. “Silly darlin’, this is all about the tease.”
“Gabe.”
Then his mouth was on hers again, his tongue thrusting deep, just as his thumbs rasped across her nipples.
Her back arched, her mouth took in more of his tongue as she gasped, her fingers curled into fists at her sides. Who would have thought this would feel so good? He chafed her tightened flesh again and she felt another burst of wet pleasure between her
thighs. She moved into him, still constricted by her clothes, but so turned on she needed to get closer, to press nearer, to put all her soft parts against his hard ones.
Gabe controlled that urge, too. Instead of letting her rub against him like she wanted to, he gripped her at the shoulders and held her away from his body. “No,” she protested, breaking the kiss.
“Shh,” he said again, and kissed the corner of her lips, her chin, the notch of her collarbone. Then he dipped his head deeper and she held her breath until she felt the touch of his tongue on her nipple.
Gasping, her back bowed. He slid an arm around her so that she had support against her shoulder blades. With his other hand, he plumped up one breast and latched his lips around its throbbing center.
And sucked.
Her mind spun, her nipple throbbed, her center melted. She moaned, and kept on moaning as he kept up the heated pressure. His tongue was working, too, flicking the stiff nub, lashing it with sensation that she never wanted to end.
But end it he did, and she cried out until he’d transferred his mouth to her other breast and tweaked the now-abandoned wet nipple with his fingers, pinching just enough to add a little bite to the delirious, drugging sweetness.
Her knees slammed together, and she couldn’t help but rock her hips against the cushions. She knew what she wanted, but Gabe wasn’t hurrying, Gabe refused to be hurried, as he shifted from one breast to the other, tasting her and teasing her.
“Please. Please, Gabe,” she heard herself whisper to him in a hoarse voice. She struggled to free herself from her shirt again, though she was really struggling to free herself of the tightening, maddening coil of pleasure. For that, she knew, she needed more nakedness, and Gabe naked, and a bed, and more of him—her darkest, deepest fantasy—against her.
“Please, Gabe.”
His mouth still busy at her breast, he lifted his gaze to meet hers. Her lungs ceased to function. Time stopped. It was exciting, erotic beyond any of her late-night imagin ings, to look into Gabe’s dark eyes, the expression in them burning, as his mouth continued to suck at her breast, his cheeks hollowing.
Her womb clenched, releasing more slick heat. “Gabe,” she mouthed, her voice robbed of sound as her body throbbed with want. “Please.”
She saw the satisfaction in his eyes. Without taking his gaze from her face, he slid his palm away from her free nipple and slid it down her body. He found the juncture of her thighs, still tightly pressed together. The heel of his hand ground firmly against the soft pad of flesh at her mound.
Moaning, she felt her thighs part. It was what he wanted because he made a hum of approval and then slid his hard fingers into the narrow gap. He had to feel her heat, the dampness, but she couldn’t do anything but tilt her hips to meet his firm, knowing touch.
Through the thin cotton of her pants and the light fabric of her panties, he found the exact right place to rock and roll. He did both, taking her closer . . . and closer . . . And when his teeth bit down on her nipple, she reacted like a band groupie to her favorite singer’s signature song . . .
She screamed.
He rode with her through the waves of orgasm. His mouth and his hand easing up as the ripples receded. When the last shudder died away, he lifted his head and took a breath. Then he placed a quick kiss on the tip of each nipple, her chin, her nose, then back to her mouth.
No tongue.
No heat.
No intent to move on to the next act.
“Gabe, what? . . .” she said, even as he was pulling up her bra and her top in the same efficient move he’d used to take them down. Her face felt hot with embarrassment. She wasn’t practiced at this after-the-scream thing, but she couldn’t just take from him, could she? “What about you?”
“That was yours, honey. Just for you.”
Her face burned hotter. Had she been too loud? Had she done something else to turn him off?
“Gabe . . .” she said, agonized. “Did I do something wrong?”
He buttoned her up almost to her chin. “No. It was me that did wrong the other night. To you.”
“What?”
“I was evening the score, Froot Loop. Us together in bed like we were—bad idea. But it happened, and I feel like a heel that I left you high and dry then.”
Us together in bed like we were . . .
The words sank in. He’d said something similar earlier, and now she finally understood what he was talking about. He thought they’d had sex the other night after she’d brought him home from the Beach Shack! He’d woken in her bed and assumed . . .
Which meant he didn’t remember a thing.
Which explained why he’d been Mr. Nice Neighbor the last couple of days, handing out kisses and concern and now . . . climaxes. He’d felt guilty for sleeping with her.
The warmth on her face and kindling in her belly had nothing to do with sex or shame now. She was pissed. He thought she thought so little of herself that she’d let some drunken barfly talk her between the sheets.
And he hadn’t questioned his assumption—or questioned her. Apparently he figured that them naked-to-naked could be just that forgettable.
Oh, she was going to make it very clear that—
But wait. His mistake had gotten him out of his bat cave. It had got him eating and talking and taking an interest in something other than his ghosts and his grief.
That was good. And despite her anger there was still enough Nightingale left in her when it came to Gabe that she wasn’t ready to see that end.
So she wouldn’t correct his wrong impression that they’d slept together. Her gaze slid over to him as he straightened on the couch. His grimace made her eyes narrow, and then she noticed the bulge in his jeans. Hah. That little session they just had might not have been shared, but it had certainly gotten to him a little. Well, good.
It only strengthened her decision. She definitely wouldn’t correct his wrong impression that they’d slept together. But she was going to make him pay for it. And now that she knew he wasn’t as immune to her as he’d always pretended, she thought she had an idea of just what it was going to cost him.
Don’t look at her, Gabe told himself, staring out the passenger-side window of Cassandra’s veggie car and pretending a fascination with the light rain. Don’t breathe, because then you’ll take in her perfume. Don’t think about the sight of her incredible breasts . . . The pale globes, their nipples red and sweet and wet after he’d loved them with his mouth.
Find your detachment, buddy. Remember, she’s like a nun. Okay, not with the image of those breasts branded into his brain. Sister, then—uh, can’t go there now either. Then friend. Yeah, Cassandra was a friend, though one he needed to keep a decided distance from—and hadn’t she asked for it herself just days ago? He couldn’t take the chance on letting his lust take over for his common sense.
She pulled into the parking lot of the medical building in Beverly Hills, and found a spot in the first row of patient spaces. “It looks like the staff will have to walk right past us to get inside,” she said, turning off the ignition. “Now we just have to sit back and wait. I was told Dr. Tucker would be in this morning.”
“Are you sure it is morning?” Gabe grumbled, peering out at the dim light. “Morning is when birds sing and sun shines and I’ve had at least three cups of coffee.”
Cassandra unhooked her seatbelt and kneeled on her seat to reach behind it. From the corner of his eye, he gave himself two seconds to check out her curvy behind in blue jeans. Her waist was tiny, flaring to hips and ass that were in proportion to that pair of spectacular . . .
He was not thinking of those spectaculars.
She flipped around, and settled back behind the steering wheel, a cardboard carrier in her lap. She had a colorful knitted hat perched on her head with tassels on its two upstanding corners, making her look like a jaunty, sexy milkmaid. “Here,” she said, handing over a cardboard cup. “Thirty-two ounces of mood enhancement.”
Hesitating
, he eyed the beverage with a frown. “Froot Loop, that’s not the sick seaweed stuff you usually drink, is it?”
“It’s one hundred percent caffeinated, he-man java, Gabe,” she replied. “Black and ugly, just like you seem to be feeling today.”
Though he maintained his scowl, inside he perked up. This was the way things usually were between them. He baited, she poked, they both used the activity to maintain a safe space between them. He took the coffee from her and raised it to his lips.
“Thank you for coming with me, by the way,” she said, her voice low. “Thank you very much.” Her slender hand landed high on his thigh and squeezed.
He jumped, and his fingers curved around the cup matched the movement of hers. Hot coffee burped out of the small drinking hole, scalding his fingers. “Damn!”
“Ouch,” she said, commiserating. She grabbed up a napkin from the cardboard carrier, and when he transferred the coffee to his other hand, she tended to the burned one herself. She dried it with the paper square, then inspected his skin.
He tried pulling away. “I’m fine.”
She held on. “Let me make sure.”
Gritting his teeth, he kept still for her ministrations, though the feel of her warm breath against his wrist might as well have been her tongue. The sensation tickled up the smooth inside flesh of his arm.
Then she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his fingers.
“What?” He yanked his hand from her grasp. “What do you think you’re doing?” With a panicked shift, he slammed his back against the passenger door to gain some extra inches from her body, her breath, her soft mouth. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Kissing it to make it better,” she said, pulling her own paper cup from the container as if she didn’t notice his alarmed posture. “Didn’t anyone ever do that for you? Didn’t you ever kiss Maddie’s little hurts?”
Dirty Sexy Knitting Page 8
